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The Celestians
Symbol Seven stars on a black circular field. Headquarters The wandering clerics of Celestian have little in the way of organization. Their home temple can be found in the Griff Mountains on the world of Oerth in Greyspace. Purpose The Celestians are a loosely knit organization of wanderers. Emulating their deity, Celestian of Greyspace, they travel the endless reaches of the stars. Their shrines are always in space, outside of planetary influence. Celestians believe in travel. They rarely settle in one place, preferring to visit as many spheres as possible. (Som claim Celestian ranks his followers in the afterlife by the number of spheres they visited when they were alive. This is not considered official doctrine by the Church.) Celestian, The Star Wanderer, is a lesser deity originally worshiped in Greyspace. Celestian is the brother of Fharlanghn, Dweller on the Far Horizon, God of Travel, a deity much more popular on Greyhawk than Celestian himself. While Fharlanghn chose to wander the roads and lands of Greyhawk, Celestian took to the stars and the Astral Plane. Celestian's followers seek to emulate their deity through spelljamming. Allies Celestians are considered useful, if a bit strange, by many spelljamming groups. Since they seek to wander the many spheres, Celestian's priests (and mages who follow this deity) are always willing to pilot long journeys through the Flow. The good-aligned trading companies and mercenary companies thus see Celestians as a convenient resource, and the sight of their starry black robes is a welcome one. However, Celestian's priests will not pilot warships or slaveships. They do not seek conquest and will not aid and unjust conqueror to invade wildspace. They will pilot mercenary ships but only to transport defenders and never into direct conflict. The Celestians and the Seekers are on good terms. Many of Celestian's followers are also Seekers, as the two organizations hold similar goals. Many Celestians who are not Seekers will still report their discoveries to that organization. In return, the Seekers acts as a communications network for the widely scattered priesthood. A sender can leave a message for a priest of Celestian at any Seeker office, and it will be transferred through the information network and presented to the recipient the next time he checks in at any other Seeker office. Enemies The followers of Ptah dislike the Celestians, in part because their special abilities, and they try to discredit the Celestians whenever possible. The Tenth Pit and the Chainmen are hostile to the Celestians because the Celestians have refused to transport Tenth Pit troops or Chainmen slaveships. As usual, the Xenos are also hostile to the Celestians as they are to any group that accepts non-humans, but since the Celestians are few, they receive little attention from the Xenos. Joining For non-priests, joining the Celestians is easy. A supplicant must convert to worship of Celestian, pledge to wander the stars as Celestian himself does, and vow to aid any person in need. (Celestian's tenets do not forbid charging for such aid, however.) These oaths are not taken too seriously, however. A "wandering" worshiper of Celestian can stop for 20 or 30 years in one place without receiving more than s gentle chiding from a priest. Any human, demihuman, or non-human may join the Celestians, although the membership is predominately human and half-elven. Dwarves, halflings and gnomes appreciate their communites too much to view wandering as desirable, although there is a small but growing contingent of kender in the Celestians' ranks. Of the non-humans, the hadozee and the xixchil are the most likely to join the Celestians, but there are very non-human Celestians of any race. Benefits Aside from being a congenial society of wanderers, the Celestians offer a number of minor benefits. Although most Celestians wander, there are Celestian hospices in many space settlements. These are run by members of the organization who have decided to settle for a time, and provide safe food and lodging to Celestians (donations are appreciated but not required). The Celestians also act to aid good-aligned travelers who are not members of the sect, but who have fallen on hard times. They assist newcomers to a sphere with advice about the local customs and laws, and will even help them find work should the need arise. It is customary to leave a donation (or, if destitute, to provide one when one is more wealthy) for these services, but there is no set schedule of fees. Celestian hospices in poorly traveled areas may appreciate tales of travel more than a token donation of gold. Celestians priests seek to visit as much of the Known Spheres as they can in their lifetimes. They are aided in this by the fact that they can recover their spells in the wildspace of any crystal sphere. Like Ptah, Celestian appears to have the ability to communicate with his priests in all spheres (but not, of course in the phlogiston). Some theologists speculate that this is because Celestian makes his home in the Astral Plane; others contend that space is his natural sphere of influence. In any case, Celestian's priests cannot recover their spells on the surface of a world in a sphere where Celestian is not worshiped. Even some large asteroids are too large to allow the priest to recover his spells. Of course, once the priests of Celestian have established a focus in the sphere, they have the same access to spells as the priests of any other deity. Celestian's priests may be standard or specialty priests. Specialty priests may use spears (a required proficiency), short swords, or staffs, and may wear any kind of armor. They may have major access to the spheres of All, Astral, Creation, Healing, and Sun, and minor access to the Guarding and Necromantic spheres. In addition, they may choose the spells of create water, endure cold/heat, resist fire/resist cold, create food and water, flame walk, quest, ''and ''wind walk. Specialty priests of Celestian receive the following special abilities, each of which can be used once per day. The ability and the level at which the ability is received is shown on the following table. In return for these abilities, specialty priests of Celestian pay an extra 10% in experience to rise in level. They must also take the non-weapon proficiencies of astronomy and navigation (wildspace). Obligations Lay members of Celestian have few obligations, except the general admonition to travel and help others. Priests of Celestians (either standard clerics or specialty priests must pledge the same oaths as lay members. However, their oaths are taken more seriously. A spelljamming priest must travel from one sphere to another at least once each year, and must visit a sphere new to the priest at least once every five years. Planetbound worshipers of Celestian are not under obligations, although they are encouraged to make similar journeys through astral travel. For example, Chelzeban, a young priest of Celestian, has just begun his spelljamming career. He begins in Greyspace and spends four months piloting a hammership of the Smith's Coster to Realmspace. When he arrives, he has met his obligation to travel between spheres for the year, and in addition has also met his obligation to visit a new sphere, as Chelzeban has never been to Realmspace before.